A glimpse into the new ACIP
Presented by
Driving the Day
ACIP TAKEAWAYS — ATLANTA — The first meeting of the newly appointed CDC vaccine panel concluded Thursday, offering a glimpse into how federal vaccine policy could begin to reflect Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s personal views, Sophie reports with POLITICO's Lauren Gardner.
During the two-day meeting at the CDC headquarters, Kennedy's hand-picked advisers on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices set the stage to revise the childhood vaccine schedule and voted to stop recommending flu shots with an additive that has long been a target of the anti-vaccine movement.
Earlier this month, Kennedy fired 17 members of the panel and replaced them with eight members — including several with a history of vaccine skepticism. One member resigned before the meeting began, leaving seven.
Here are three takeaways from the meeting:
1. Kennedy's agenda was front and center
The panel voted to no longer recommend thimerosal-containing flu vaccines for all ages, a measure Kennedy has pushed for. In 2014, he wrote a book about thimerosal, arguing that it likely causes autism and should be banned.
But many public health agencies have long considered the preservative to be safe — including the CDC, according to its website.
What it means: If endorsed by the CDC director, the new recommendations would mark one of the most prominent examples of Kennedy's views reflected in U.S. vaccine policy since becoming HHS secretary. With no CDC director or acting director in place, however, Kennedy is expected to make the final endorsement.
2. One member pushed back
The panel's lone pediatrician, Dartmouth's Dr. Cody Meissner, was the only voting member to push back on views presented that contradicted scientific consensus, a development that encouraged some public health experts otherwise troubled by the meeting.
'He's dealt with vaccine-preventable diseases. He's talked to parents about vaccines, so I thought he was generally a voice of reason,' said Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician who serves on the FDA's external vaccine panel.
3. More vaccine scrutiny looms
The committee's agenda items in the months ahead signal that Thursday's thimerosal votes were just the beginning of policy shifts that could affect vaccine access in the U.S.
ACIP Chair Martin Kulldorff, an epidemiologist and a former Harvard Medical School professor, said Wednesday the panel would review childhood vaccines and shots not studied in more than seven years, opening up the possibility of significant changes to the pediatric schedule. And he said Thursday that, at its next meeting, the panel might consider advising against the use of a combination shot known as MMRV, which protects against measles and chickenpox, in children under 4 years old.
WELCOME TO FRIDAY PULSE. Did anything else stand out to you from the ACIP meeting? Let us know, and send your tips, scoops and feedback to khooper@politico.com and sgardner@politico.com, and follow along @kelhoops and @sophie_gardnerj.
In Congress
CUTS IN QUESTION — The Senate parliamentarian dealt a blow to Senate Republicans' plans for the GOP megabill Thursday, sending lawmakers back to the drawing board as several of their health-related provisions won't be able to pass along party lines, POLITICO's Meredith Lee Hill, Robert King and Jordain Carney report.
Those provisions include a politically explosive plan to hold down Medicaid costs by cracking down on a state provider tax, as well as proposals to exclude undocumented residents from Medicaid and to prohibit plans that cover abortion from receiving certain Obamacare payments.
The decisions, detailed in a Thursday morning memo, come at a critical time for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who's already facing a revolt inside his conference as members are wary of the practical and political impacts of the Medicaid changes. Thune said Thursday the Senate would not move to overrule its parliamentarian despite prodding from multiple conservatives.
When asked by POLITICO about overruling her, Thune said, 'No, that would not be a good option for getting a bill done.'
Pressure is on: Despite the setback, the White House still expects lawmakers to meet President Donald Trump's fast-approaching July 4 deadline for passage of the bill, which would enact his domestic agenda of tax cuts and energy and border policy.
FIRST IN PULSE: CURES CAMPAIGN — Advocacy group UsAgainstAlzheimer's today launched a seven-figure campaign to fight back against the Trump administration's massive funding cuts to health agencies and medical research.
The campaign, called United for Cures, is pushing to restore funding that the Trump administration has cut at the National Institutes of Health and the FDA that went toward developing life-saving treatments and cures for diseases like Alzheimer's, cancer and diabetes. The group will release digital and social media ads today that will run through September, targeting Republican lawmakers in vulnerable seats and urging them to preserve medical research funding.
The digital ads call out Reps. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) and David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), David Valadao (R-Calif.), as well as Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).
'United for Cures is launching at a critical moment — when life-saving biomedical research is under attack,' said Russ Paulsen, chief operating officer of UsAgainstAlzheimer's. 'Deep cuts to federal health agencies, especially the NIH, are jeopardizing future breakthroughs that give Americans a fighting chance against deadly diseases.'
Background: President Donald Trump wants Congress to codify spending cuts he's clawed back from the NIH. The Trump administration also wants Congress to slash the NIH's budget by more than 40 percent in fiscal 2026, from roughly $47 billion to $27 billion.
The proposed budget cements a controversial plan to impose a 15 percent cap on the indirect costs that the NIH pays to aid research at universities — a cut that university presidents have warned would decimate their ability to conduct critical laboratory work. That plan was later halted in court.
Key context: Researchers and universities have said that the deep cuts would put the U.S. at risk of losing its edge to China as the world's leader in biomedical research.
At the Courts
GRANT FUNDING STAYS ON PAUSE — A federal judge on Thursday declined to immediately restore federal grants to Planned Parenthood affiliates participating in HHS's teen pregnancy prevention program.
Five Planned Parenthood affiliates sued the Trump administration in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in May after HHS ordered the groups to align with executive orders from President Donald Trump to keep receiving grant funding for the program. The executive orders aim to end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at federal agencies and affirm the definition of biological sex as either male or female, among other ideology-focused guidance.
The groups argue the Trump administration's mandate is 'impossibly vague' and would impede Planned Parenthood from implementing the teen pregnancy prevention program's mandate from Congress: to implement 'medically accurate' programs that effectively reduce teenage pregnancy and associated risk factors.
The Planned Parenthood groups sought both a preliminary and permanent injunction against the new funding requirements, but Trump-appointed Judge Timothy Kelly rejected the preliminary request Thursday, saying the groups failed to demonstrate that Planned Parenthood will imminently suffer irreparable harm.
Planned Parenthood didn't immediately return a request for comment.
Background: The Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program is a national, evidence-based program that provides grant funding to organizations like Planned Parenthood to educate teens and their guardians on sexual and reproductive health and improve health outcomes — including decreasing sexually transmitted infections and unintended teen pregnancy. The program is administered by HHS's Office of Population Affairs, with an annual budget of about $101 million.
Medicaid
SMALL-BUSINESS IMPACT — Republicans' Medicaid cut proposals could be devastating for small business owners and workers who rely on the so-called safety-net health insurance program, according to an analysis from the Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy.
About one-third of all Medicaid enrollees — including owners and employees and their family members — are connected to small businesses, according to the report. About 11 million children whose parents are self-employed or work for small businesses are enrolled in Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program that covers more than 70 million low-income Americans.
Why it matters: Providing private health insurance can be costly for small businesses because of high administrative costs and a smaller pool of people in the market compared to larger businesses. That's why many small businesses don't offer health insurance plans to workers, and a large share instead rely on the Affordable Care Act or Medicaid.
But the proposals in the House-passed GOP megabill threaten to kick millions of people off both Medicaid and the ACA, heightening concerns for small business owners about fueling job growth at their companies.
'Most notably, we would expect to see many small business workers have to leave their jobs, and even some small business owners close their firms, and go work for someone else in part because they will have lost their health benefits through Medicaid,' said David Chase, vice president of policy and advocacy at the Small Business Majority, in a statement.
Names in the News
Jonathan Kupperman has been promoted to legislative director for Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas). He most recently was health policy adviser for Arrington.
WHAT WE'RE READING
POLITICO's Alice Miranda Ollstein, Josh Gerstein and Lauren Gardner report on the Supreme Court clearing the way for states to kick Planned Parenthood out of Medicaid.
KFF Health News' Jordan Rau reports on a double whammy of threats facing the long-term health care industry.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
‘Explosive increase' of ticks that cause meat allergy in US due to climate crisis
Blood-sucking ticks that trigger a bizarre allergy to meat in the people they bite are exploding in number and spreading across the US, to the extent that they could cover the entire eastern half of the country and infect millions of people, experts have warned. Lone star ticks have taken advantage of rising temperatures by the human-caused climate crisis to expand from their heartland in the south-east US to areas previously too cold for them, in recent years marching as far north as New York and even Maine, as well as pushing westwards. The ticks are known to be unusually aggressive and can provoke an allergy in bitten people whereby they cannot eat red meat without enduring a severe reaction, such as breaking out in hives and even the risk of heart attacks. The condition, known as alpha-gal syndrome, has proliferated from just a few dozen known cases in 2009 to as many as 450,000 now. 'We thought this thing was relatively rare 10 years ago but it's become more and more common and it's something I expect to continue to grow very rapidly,' said Brandon Hollingsworth, an expert at the University of South Carolina who has researched the tick's expansion. 'We've seen an explosive increase in these ticks, which is a concern. I imagine alpha-gal will soon include the entire range of the tick, which could become the entire eastern half of the US as there's not much to stop them. It seems like an oddity now but we could end up with millions of people with an allergy to meat.' The exact number of alpha-gal cases is unclear due to patchy data collection but it's likely to be a severe undercount as people may not link their allergic reaction to the tick bites. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said around 110,000 cases have been documented since 2010 but acknowledges the true number could be as high as 450,000. Cases will rise further as the ticks spread, aided by their adaptability to local conditions, according to Laura Harrington, an entomologist and disease specialist at Cornell University. 'With their adaptive nature and increasing temperatures, I don't see many limits to these ticks over time,' she said. Alpha-gal is a confounding condition because it doesn't cause an immediate allergic reaction, unlike a peanut allergy, with symptoms often appearing several hours after consuming meat. The syndrome is not caused by a pathogen but spurs an allergy to a sugar molecule found in mammals and an array of other things, from toothpaste to medical equipment. Researchers think the condition can wane over time but is also worsened by further tick bites. This leads to a confusing and fraught experience for the growing number of Americans with alpha-gal, who are now girding for another expected hot summer full of ticks. 'The ticks are rampant this year, I've pulled 10 ticks off me this season alone, it feels like they are uncontrollable at the moment,' said Heather O'Bryan, a horticulturist in Roanoke, Virginia, who has alpha-gal. 'They are so disgusting. I'm not afraid of a lot, but I'm afraid of ticks.' In 2019, O'Bryan suffered full body hives and struggled to breathe after eating a pork sausage. 'It was terrifying experience, I didn't know I had an allergy but it almost killed me,' she said. She now avoids products containing mammal-derived elements, such as certain toothpastes and even toilet paper, due to adverse reactions. Dairy, another mammalian product, is also off limits. 'I've learned what I can eat now, but I was so sad when I realized I couldn't have pizza again, I remember crying in front of a frozen pizza in the supermarket aisle,' she said. There is now an 'almost constant' stream of new members to the Facebook alpha-gal support groups that O'Bryan is part of, she said, with her region of Virginia now seemingly saturated by the condition. 'Everyone knows someone who has it, I talk a friend off a ledge once a month when they've been bitten because they are so afraid they have it and are freaking out,' she said. Lone star ticks are aggressive and can speedily follow a human target if they detect them. 'They will hunt you, they are like a cross between a lentil and a velociraptor,' said Sharon Pitcairn Forsyth, a conservationist who lives in the Washington DC area. A particular horror is the prospect of brushing up against vegetation containing a massed ball of juvenile lone star ticks, know as a 'tick bomb', that can deliver thousands of tick bites. 'They are so tiny you can't see them but you have to take it seriously or you'll never get them off you,' said Forsyth, who now carries around a lint roller to remove such clusters. After being diagnosed with alpha-gal, Forsyth set up online resources about the condition to help spread awareness and advocate for better food labeling to include alpha-gal warnings. 'I get calls from doctors asking questions about this because they just don't know about it,' she said. 'I'm not a medical professional, so I just send them the research papers.' As the climate heats up, due to the burning of fossil fuels, ticks are able to shift to areas that are becoming agreeably warm for them. Growing numbers of deer, which host certain ticks, and sprawling housing development into natural habitats is also causing more interactions with ticks. 'Places where houses push up against habitats and parks where nature has regrown are where we are seeing cases,' said Hollingsworth. But much is still unknown, such as why lone star ticks, which have long been native to the US, suddenly started causing these allergic reactions. Symptoms can also be alarmingly varied – Forsyth said she rarely eats out now because of concerns of contamination in the food and even that alpha-gal could be carried to her airborne, via the steam of cooked meat. 'Some people are scared to leave the house, it's hard to avoid,' she said. 'Many people who get it are over 50, so the first symptom some of them have is a heart attack.' So how far can alpha-gal spread? Cases have been found in Europe and Australia, although in low numbers, while in the US it's assumed lone star ticks won't be able to shift west of the Rocky mountains. But other tick species might also be able to spread alpha-gal syndrome – a recent scientific paper found the western black legged tick and the black legged tick, also called the deer tick, could also cause the condition. Hanna Oltean, an epidemiologist at Washington state department of health, said it was 'very surprising' to find a case of alpha-gal in Washington state from a person bitten by a tick locally, suggesting the western black legged tick could be a culprit. 'The range is spreading and emerging in new areas so the risk is increasing over time,' Oltean said. 'Washington state is very far from the range and the risk remains very low here. But we don't know enough about the biology of how ticks spread the syndrome.' The spread of alpha-gal comes amid a barrage of disease threats from different ticks that are fanning out across a rapidly warming US. Powassan virus, which can kill people via an inflammation of the brain, is still rare but is growing, as is Babesia, a parasite that causes severe illnesses. Lyme disease, long a feature of the US north-east, is also burgeoning. 'We are dealing with a lot of serious tick-borne illnesses and discovering new ones all the time,' said Harrington. 'There's a tremendous urgency to confront this with new therapies but the problem is we are going backwards in terms of funding and support in the US. There have been cuts to the CDC and NIH (National Institutes of Health) which means there is decreasing support. It's a major concern.'
CBS News
2 hours ago
- CBS News
HHS eliminates CDC staff who made sure birth control is safe for women at risk
For Brianna Henderson, birth control isn't just about preventing pregnancy. The Texas mother of two was diagnosed with a rare and potentially fatal heart condition after having her second child. In addition to avoiding another pregnancy that could be life-threatening, Henderson has to make sure the contraception she uses doesn't jeopardize her health. For more than a decade, a small team of people at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention worked to do just that, issuing national guidelines for clinicians on how to prescribe contraception safely for millions of women with underlying medical conditions — including heart disease, lupus, sickle cell disease, and obesity. But the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, fired those workers as part of the Trump administration's rapid downsizing of the federal workforce. It also decimated the CDC's larger Division of Reproductive Health, where the team was housed — a move that clinicians, advocacy groups, and fired workers say will endanger the health of women and their babies. Clinicians said in interviews that counseling patients about birth control and prescribing it is relatively straightforward. But for women with conditions that put them at higher risk of serious health complications, special care is needed. "We really were the only source of safety monitoring in this country," said one fired CDC staffer who worked on the guidelines, known as the U.S. Medical Eligibility Criteria for Contraceptive Use, or MEC. "There's no one who can actually do this work." KFF Health News agreed not to name this worker and others who were not authorized to speak to the press and feared retaliation. The stakes are high for people like Henderson. About six weeks after having her second baby, she said, her heart "was racing." Brianna Henderson poses for a portrait with her husband, Tech Henderson, and children, Rafael Bowens Jr. and Talaycia Henderson, outside their home in Grandview, Texas, on Tuesday, June 17, 2025. Brianna Henderson has become an advocate for educating women about peripartum cardiomyopathy, the rare and potentially fatal heart condition she was diagnosed with after the birth of her second child. Desiree Rios for KFF Health News "I feel like I'm underwater," Henderson said. "I felt like I couldn't breathe." She eventually went to the hospital, where she was told she was "in full-blown heart failure," she said. Henderson was diagnosed with peripartum cardiomyopathy, an uncommon type of heart failure that can happen toward the end of pregnancy or shortly after giving birth. Risk factors for the condition include being at least 30 years old, being of African descent, high blood pressure, and obesity. The CDC contraception guidelines say that combined hormonal contraception, which contains both estrogen and progestin to prevent pregnancy, can pose an "unacceptable health risk" for most women with peripartum cardiomyopathy, also known as PPCM. For some women with the diagnosis, a birth control injection commonly known by the brand name Depo-Provera also carries risks that outweigh its benefits, the guidelines show. Progestin-only pills or a birth control implant, inserted into a person's arm, are the safest. Henderson said her cardiologist had to greenlight which contraception she could use. She uses a progestin-only birth control implant that's more than 99% effective in preventing pregnancy. "I didn't know that certain things can cause blood clots," Henderson said, "or make your heart failure worse." Heart failure is a leading cause of maternal mortality and morbidity in the U.S., with PPCM accounting for up to 70% of heart failure cases during pregnancy. Sweeping HHS layoffs in late March and early April gutted the CDC's reproductive health division, upending several programs designed to protect women and infants, three fired workers said. About two-thirds of the division's roughly 165 employees and contractors were cut, through firings, retirements, or reassignments to other parts of the agency, one worker said. Among those fired were CDC staffers who carried out the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, a survey established nearly 40 years ago to improve maternal and infant health outcomes by asking detailed questions of women who recently gave birth. The survey was used "to help inform and help reduce the contributing factors that cause maternal mortality and morbidity," one fired worker said, by allowing government workers to examine the medical care people received before and during pregnancy, if any, and other risk factors that may lead to poor maternal and child health. The firings also removed CDC workers who collected and analyzed data on in vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments. "They left nothing behind," one worker said. U.S. contraception guidelines were first published in 2010, after the CDC adapted guidance developed by the World Health Organization. The latest version was published in August 2024. It includes information about the safety of different types of contraception for more than 60 medical conditions. Clinicians said it is the premier source of evidence about the safety of birth control. "It gave us so much information which was not available to clinicians at their fingertips," said Michael Policar, a physician and professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at the University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine. "If you've got a person with, let's say, long-standing Type 2 diabetes, someone who has a connective-tissue disease like lupus, someone who's got hypertension or maybe has been treated for a precursor to breast cancer — something like that? In those circumstances," Policar said, "before the MEC it was really hard to know how to manage those people." The CDC updates the guidelines comprehensively roughly every five years. On a weekly basis, however, government workers would monitor evidence about patients' use of contraception and the safety of various methods, something they were doing when HHS abruptly fired them this spring, two fired workers said. That work isn't happening now, one of them said. Sometimes the agency would issue interim changes outside the larger updates if new evidence warranted it. Now, if something new or urgent comes up, "there's not going to be any way to update the guidelines," one fired worker said. In 2020, for example, the CDC revised its contraception recommendations for women at high risk of HIV infection, after new evidence showed that various methods were safer than previously thought. HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard declined to say why CDC personnel working on the contraception guidelines and other reproductive health issues were fired, or answer other questions raised by KFF Health News' reporting. Most women of reproductive age in the U.S. use contraception. CDC data from 2019, the most recent available, shows that more than 47 million women ages 15 to 49 relied on birth control. About 1 in 10 used long-acting methods such as intrauterine devices and implants; 1 in 7 used oral contraception. The latest guidelines included updated safety recommendations for women who have sickle cell disease, lupus, or PPCM, and those who are breastfeeding, among others. Clinicians are now being told that combined hormonal contraception poses an unacceptable health risk for women with sickle cell disease, because it might increase the risk of blood clots. "It can really come down to life or death," said Teonna Woolford, CEO of the Sickle Cell Reproductive Health Education Directive, a nonprofit that advocates for improved reproductive health care for people with the disease. "We really saw the CDC guidelines as a win, as a victory — they're actually going to pay attention," she said. The 2024 guidelines also for the first time included birth control recommendations for women with chronic kidney disease. Research has shown that such women are at higher risk of serious pregnancy complications, including preeclampsia and preterm delivery. Their medical condition also increases their risk of blood clots, which is why it's important for them to not use combined hormonal contraception, fired CDC workers and clinicians said. The CDC information "is the final say in safety," said Patty Cason, a family nurse practitioner and president of Envision Sexual and Reproductive Health. Having only static information about the safety of various types of birth control is "very scary," she said, because new evidence could come out and entirely new methods of contraception are being developed. Henderson said it took her heart two years to recover. She created the nonprofit organization Let's Talk PPCM to educate women about the type of heart failure she was diagnosed with, including what forms of birth control are safe. "We don't want blood clots, worsening heart failures," Henderson said. "They already feel like they can't trust their doctors, and we don't need extra." KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.
Politico
2 hours ago
- Politico
Thune heads into a perilous vote-a-rama
IN TODAY'S EDITION:— Senate amendment fights to watch— House readies mid-week megabill vote— Don Bacon, Dusty Johnson to announce House exits The Senate's 'big, beautiful' vote-a-rama starts in just over four hours — and nobody knows how it's going to end. Senate Majority Leader John Thune can only lose one more vote with Sens. Rand Paul and Thom Tillis already opposed. As Senate GOP leaders scramble to strike deals to keep the bill on track, House Republicans are drawing red lines, with fiscal hawks threatening to tank the bill over the Senate's budget framework and moderates balking at the provider-tax crackdown. Here are the big fights we're watching when amendment votes kick off at 9 a.m., leading to a final vote on passage late tonight or early Tuesday: Medicaid: Sen. Rick Scott's proposal to curb a key Medicaid funding mechanism after 2030 has Thune's support as part of a deal struck to get the Florida senator and a handful of other holdouts to advance the megabill to debate. If it fails, it could cost leadership some fiscal hawks, though Sens. Scott and Ron Johnson refused to go there Sunday night, our Jordain Carney writes in. If it passes, it could alienate so-called Medicaid moderates. One of them, Sen. Susan Collins, filed an amendment that would double the stabilization fund for rural hospitals to $50 billion, and pay for it by adding a 39.6-percent bracket on earners making over $25 million. Medicaid moderates could also try to further water down the bill's cut to the provider tax. Keep an eye on Tillis, now unburdened by a reelection bid, who slammed the Medicaid cuts in a fiery floor speech Sunday and might jump in again. Another key player to watch is Sen. Lisa Murkowski and whether her support slips after the parliamentarian derailed Medicaid-payment provisions aimed at winning over the Alaskan. The parliamentarian also, as of early this morning, had yet to rule on food-aid waivers for Alaska that could affect Murkowski's vote. Green credits: Moderates including Tillis and Sen. John Curtis could offer amendments to soften the bill's deep cuts against wind and solar energy, including its crackdown on IRA credits and a new excise tax, our Josh Siegel writes in. That could provoke a fight with House conservatives and the White House, which have pushed for aggressive rollbacks. AI: Commerce Chair Ted Cruz and Sen. Marsha Blackburn are pitching a plan to cut the megabill's 10-year moratorium on state enforcement of AI laws in half and make accommodations for internet protections, our Mohar Chatterjee writes in. The grand finale could be a manager's amendment that House GOP leaders are pushing for to further resolve differences between the chambers and speed the bill to Trump by Friday. The House is scheduled to vote as soon as Wednesday at 9 a.m. GOOD MONDAY MORNING. You bring the snacks, we'll bring the live vote-a-rama coverage at Email us at lkashinsky@ and mmccarthy@ THE SKED The House is out but will hold a pro forma session at 2 p.m. The Senate is in session and will begin voting on amendments for the megabill at 9 a.m. The rest of the week: The House plans to vote on the megabill as soon as Wednesday morning. THE LEADERSHIP SUITE Jeffries declines to endorse Mamdani House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Sunday he's not ready to endorse Zohran Mamdani, who won the New York Democratic mayoral primary last week. The Brooklyn Democrat said he doesn't know Mamdani well and that their districts don't overlap, but added that he's hoping to sit down and 'discuss his vision for moving the city forward.' Mamdani, who identifies as a democratic socialist, has been criticized for his pro-Palestine positions and comments about Israel, a concern Jeffries addressed. 'With respect to the Jewish communities that I represent,' Jeffries said, 'I think our nominee is going to have to convince folks that he is prepared to aggressively address the rise in antisemitism in the city of New York, which has been an unacceptable development.' POLICY RUNDOWN FARM FIGHT IN THE MEGABILL — Dozens of agriculture groups are urging senators to oppose an amendment from Sen. Chuck Grassley that would limit income thresholds of farmers who can receive federal aid, Meredith Lee Hill reports. A host of farm-state GOP senators also oppose Grassley's push, three people granted anonymity told Meredith. Some are concerned that liberal senators could join with conservative fiscal hawks to pass the amendment. CHAMBER OPPOSES CLEAN-ENERGY TAX — The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Solar Energy Industry Association are slamming a new addition to the megabill that would tax solar and wind projects that have components from foreign sources, including China. 'Taxing energy production is never good policy, whether oil & gas or, in this case, renewables,' Chamber executive vice president and chief policy officer Neil Bradley wrote on X. 'Electricity demand is set to see enormous growth & this tax will increase prices.' Some manufacturer interests including the Coalition for a Prosperous America and First Solar are supporting the provision, which they see as a measure to crack down on Chinese manufacturing. Best of POLITICO Pro and E&E: CAMPAIGN STOP TILLIS SHAKES UP SENATE MAP — Democrats are eyeing a prime new pickup opportunity in North Carolina as Tillis retires. Their potentially most formidable candidate, former Gov. Roy Cooper, is expected to decide this summer whether he'll run for the seat. Former Rep. Wiley Nickel is already in the race. The possible Republican field includes Lara Trump, who is considering a campaign; RNC Chair Michael Whatley, whom the White House considers a strong candidate; and Rep. Pat Harrigan, whom some in Trump's orbit are also promoting, Lisa reports with our Nicholas Wu, Elena Schneider and Dasha Burns. BACON, JOHNSON TO ANNOUNCE HOUSE EXITS — Rep. Don Bacon is expected to announce his retirement today, two people familiar with his plans told Meredith. The centrist Republican's Nebraska seat is a prime pickup opportunity for Democrats; it's one of only three GOP-held districts Kamala Harris won in 2024. Douglas County Sheriff Aaron Hanson has spoken with GOP operatives about the race, per Meredith. Rep. Dusty Johnson is expected to announce a bid for South Dakota governor today, two people familiar with his planning told Meredith. He'll be the eighth House Republican to run for higher office in 2026. POTENTIAL MASSIE CHALLENGER INCOMING — White House officials will host Kentucky state Sen. Aaron Reed in the coming weeks to discuss a primary campaign against Rep. Thomas Massie, Lisa scooped with our Rachael Bade and Ben Jacobs. Massie endorsed Reed's run for state Senate in 2021, and Reed in return called the representative 'one of America's greatest Congressmen.' CONNOLLY AIDE WINS SNAP PRIMARY — James Walkinshaw, a former top aide to the late Rep. Gerry Connolly, won the Democratic nomination to succeed his longtime boss, making him the favorite to win the suburban Virginia district. As our Giselle Ruhiyyih Ewing reported over the weekend, Connolly's social media accounts and campaign email list posthumously promoted Walkinshaw's campaign — one of several instances of lawmakers posting from the grave. THE BEST OF THE REST Lindsey Graham Swayed Trump on Striking Iran. Here's What's Next. from Siobhan Hughes, Eliza Collins and Meridith McGraw at The Wall Street Journal 'Multiple full-time jobs': Inside the life of young parents in Congress, from Cami Mondeaux at Deseret News JOB BOARD Claire Trokey, a policy adviser for House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, is leaving to join LinkedIn's U.S. public policy team. Trokey will lead the company's engagement with the Trump administration and congressional Republicans. Adam Taylor, the former military legislative assistant and legislative director for Rep. Scott Peters, is now his Washington chief of staff. John Crews will serve as deputy assistant secretary for Treasury's Office of Financial Institutions Policy. Prior to joining Treasury, he served as a policy adviser to Scalise and covered economic and financial services policy. Before that, Crews was policy director of the Senate Banking Committee. Connor Dunn will serve as deputy assistant secretary for Treasury's Office of Legislative Affairs, covering banking and finance. Prior to joining Treasury, Dunn was at FS Vector, a strategic consulting firm. He's an alum of the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committees. Spencer Hurwitz will serve as deputy assistant secretary for Treasury's public affairs office, covering terrorism and financial intelligence. He previously served as director of comms and senior adviser to Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a member of the Senate Finance Committee. HAPPY BIRTHDAY Blake Nanney of the American Cleaning Institute … Kyle Plotkin … former Rep. Barbara Comstock … Dan Leistikow … Dan Judy of North Star Opinion Research … Kara Adame … Zack Christenson … Eve Sparks of Rep. Jeff Crank's office … Adam Kennedy TRIVIA FRIDAY'S ANSWER: Jeff Jenks correctly answered that the House Agriculture Committee celebrated its 200th birthday in 2020. TODAY'S QUESTION, from Mia: What is the highest number of roll call votes that have been offered during a vote-a-rama and in what year? The first person to correctly guess gets a mention in the next edition of Inside Congress. Send your answers to insidecongress@
